Activity Groups

The Young Professionals Think Deep Programme is organised by ITACUS together with our strategic partner ISOCARP (International Society of City and Regional Planners). The programme is based on the long-running Young Planning Professionals' Programme introduced by ISOCARP over 25 years ago and aimed at helping both young planners in their professional development and at the same time cities with interdisciplinary planning challenges. Typically, a YPTDP workshop consists of a week-long activity where young planners, architects, engineers, geologists and other related professionals work on a real-life case. The methodology used can differ per workshop. Through these workshops, ITACUS and ISOCARP aim at producing a new publication on underground planning methodology. Watch a video on the YPTDP here.
AG1 Co-Leaders: Petr Salak and Rosanne Verloop

The Urban Sustainability activity group was formed during WTC 2018 in Dubai. It aims at looking at how the use of urban underground space interacts with the cityscape and contributes to the sustainable development of the city. This activity group will work closely together with Working Group 20 of ITA which liaises with the ITA Member Nations on obtaining input on this topic. AG2 will use the cases and other research to develop a sustainability framework for underground space development. The work will build on previous work done by for example COST Action TU1206 Sub-Urban.
AG2 Leader: Dr Chrysothemis Paraskevopoulou.

The Urban Adaptability activity group focusses on how the subsurface literally supports the city and how this can affect urban adaptability. The subsurface plays a vital role, on the one hand as the foundation of urban life and on the other hand providing eco-system services that sustain life on the surface. AG3 will look into how these two approaches need to be integrated into urban planning policy as both of them can influence urban adaptability. At the same time, the development of underground spaces can also help in making a city adapt. Achieving this requires finding a way to balance human intervention with natural systems in such a way that urban adaptabilty is enhanced.
AG3 Leader: Mahak Agrawal

The Think Deep National Actions Programme is a call to action for all those professionals within Member Nations of ITA to come together in national Think Deep groups. These national groups aim at identifying how to integrate urban underground space development into national, regional and local government planning policies and planning practice. As this is often very situational and depends on national policy and legislation, the Think Deep groups are well positioned to advocate and activate underground space awareness. Typically Think Deep groups seek to work together with national ISOCARP delegations ensuring that planning and engineering knowledge is used to further the work of the groups. Watch a video on the TDNAP here.
AG4 Leader: Abidemi Agwor.

During WTC 2019 in Naples, the activity group Urban Integration was formed. This activity group will focus on integrating uses in the urban underground space, by integrating results of the other ITACUS activity groups and by integrating disciplines such as urban geography. Urban integration recognises the complexity of the modern urban environment and the need to integrate over disciplines to reach successful outcomes. By combining this with the concept of combined use of underground spaces, as opposed to the conventional mono-use.
AG5 Leader: Dr Marilu Melo.